i bought the first edition of this book (1997). i have used it extensively to do the statistical analysis of data for my thesis. it is a good spss reference. but does not offer 100% coverage of the tests, abilities, etc of spss. if you need to know how to carry out straight forward tests, which tests to choose, etc., this book will help you. but, if things get complicated, as they often do, this text may alert you to a situation, but then not perform the follow through to get you out of the situation. for example, i ran an anova which indicated a significant interaction. examples given in the text walk you through the lmatrix syntax for a simple 2x3 simple main effects test, but don't discuss the syntax for higher order anovas. they also alert you to the fact that they are walking you through the syntax for simple main effects assuming homogeneity of variance. if you have a situation where you are not assuming homogeneity of variance, you are out of luck, they discuss the topic no further because of space restrictions. so if you have some advanced stats questions/topics/situations, this book may not cover them, and like me you will be searching for a more thorough treatment. on its good side, is the format, and the synnopsis at the end of each chapter which summarizes the statistical findings in apa format. this is a great feature when you get to the point where you need to write up your findings! so, this book helped me out a great deal in the begining, and in the writeup phase, but when things got complicated, i was stuck.